One of the best times to visit Disney is during the holidays because they really go ALL OUT with decorations there, every little thing gets the full Disney treatment. We’ve been before at Thanksgiving a few times as well as early December, but this year we figured out a way to go the week of/before Christmas. There are many “must see’s too; Main Street at Magic Kingdom, the gingerbread house at the Grand Floridian, the Wilderness Lodge Lobby, and tree lighting at EPCOT are just a few. But the one must see has got to be the Osborne Family Lights at Hollywood Studios. We’ve been before several years ago before Lights, Motors, Action when the old Residential Street still existed and that was what got decorated, but since it was removed, they now decorate the Streets of America. We actually went in between years, the one year they didn’t have it at all which was sad to miss because we hadn’t been back at Christmas since whenever that was. Read more

Another new first for a Disney trip this time around. Usually Kriss and I go to the EPCOT International Food and Wine Festival alone. We’ve been with other adults in the past, friends and family, but it’s our one trip a year where we are able to get away without any kids because we plan it on a weekend that the oldest three are at their other parent’s houses and Kellie stayed with my grandparents. Unfortunately both of them passed away this year so we decided to take Kellie with us. We’ve also added another adult going with us, Kriss’ mom Linda. This year we are also meeting some of their family from Boston, Mandy, Donna, and Joe. Again with time constraints of work and kid sitting we planned the trip to be a Friday-Sunday trip. Read more

Just over a year ago, the Disney Vacation Club announced that members staying using their points could access the internet from their room for free, and being able to telecommute, we’d always thought it would be nice to go spend a week or more at Disney and I work from the room and then enjoy Disney when I didn’t need to work. So finally this July we decided to try it before Kellie started back to school, just her Kriss, and I. Read more

So by now I’m sure most of you know we have this little celebration every March 17th in Savannah, Ga, called St Patrick’s Day. It’s only the 2nd largest parade in the US, but definitely the largest party afterward. It was on a Tuesday this year and the girls were out of school so we headed downtown with our neighbor Lonnie. We got there about 8:00 and headed to a Starbucks for a little warm up/wake up juice and get the kids a little bite to eat. It was still a little cool out and I had opted for shorts opting to deal with the cool for a little while in hopes of making it up on the back side with the predicted nice weather so getting inside out of the windy gray chill was good. Read more

Again we took a trip to beautiful Tybee Island for another parade, this time St Patrick’s day. Tybee held it’s parade on the Saturday before the big Savannah parade and we again had kids on hand and an extra one to boot in Courtney, Alyssa’s friend, so we loaded up and trekked to the island hoping for another fun day. It was gray and cooler this time, as opposed to the beautiful day we had in February for Mardi Gras, so we decided to get back off the beach breeze a little and stood on Tybrisa this time. Read more

We usually take at least one Disney trip in the winter during January or February and with annual passes and other membership cards expiring, we decided to go the last weekend in February. I had also thought it may be a slower weekend since Valentines/President’s Day week is usually very busy. Kellie had a Dr appointment at 7:30 Friday morning so as soon as we were done with it we headed south. We got in to Orlando just after 1:00PM at Disney’s Old Key West, one of our favorite places to stay, checked in and grabbed a bite to eat at Olivia’s for lunch. We stayed at OKW on our last trip to Food and Wine Festival in October and actually got the same room both times, studio 3316, by chance. Read more

This past weekend Tybee had it’s first Annual Mardi Gras parade and street party. We had all four kids this weekend so Kriss and I made plans to go down to the beach and check it out. The kids really love going to the beach and the weather was going to be nice. We got there early enough to get good parking and get down by the pier where a few vendors were set up selling beads, masks, drinks, etc. We had over an hour before the parade came so we walked up on the pier and then the kids wanted to go dig in the sand so we let them while we sat on the pier and enjoyed the sun.We ran in to several friends too. Read more

Yesterday Kellie went on her first kindergarten field trip and Kriss went along to help herd the kids. They went all the way to Georgia Southern in Statesboro and visited the Science Center and Planetarium. They got to learn about plants and do experiments with them, dinosaurs and play with their fossilized poop, and dig for fossils. The weather was supposed to be in the upper 60′s so they planned to eat outside but it ended up not getting anywhere near that warm so they were eating outside in the cold. I can’t believe there wasn’t somewhere they could have gone where it was warm, some kids didn’t have enough clothes even. Judging by the pictures it looks like they had a lot of fun though. They even had green shirts made up for it.

This year our new tradition of the kids making gingerbread houses is carried on. This started last year when Auntie Dawna (aunt Donna is from Boston) came down for Thanksgiving and on the weekend after she bought a gingerbread house kit for Kellie to decorate while the other two were off for the weekend. So this year nana bought three kits for each of them to decorate on their own. From L-R; Erin’s, Alyssa’s, and Kellie’s. I’m not certain if all of the royal icing is going to come up off the floor, carpet, counter, tv remote, or cordless phone, but we have three lovely gingerbread houses to show for it so thats a pretty fair trade off. Click pic for full size view.

Today was the last day of school for all of the kids here in Bryan co. They were all excited but Kellie was very excited to have her first Christmas party, especially since she missed the Halloween party since she was sick. Kriss and I went up to the school to take treat bags and help out. Another parent brought these tree hat kits, that’s what she is decorating in the picture. You glue ornaments to it and then roll it up and it looks like an elf hat. They all had fun and were surprisingly good the whole time, not once did they get rowdy. We were trying to hurry though because Erin’s class was having a party too and her school is right next door within walking distance so I ran and put Kellie’s stuff in the car while she and Kriss went to Erin’s class. We should have gone there first because they had pizza. It also looked a little rowdier there but she was smiling and having fun.